Biography

German film maker and author, forefront of the Gay Movement, one of the leading figures in gay and lesbian cinema and New German Cinema. He directed "Tally Brown, New York," a documentary about New York underground legend Tally Brown, the first of his wild, unpredictable portraits of aging dancers and cabaret stars in the subterranean bowels of late '70s New York. The movie featured Divine as well as Warhol-superstars, Taylor Meade and Holly Woodlawn.

His deliberately controversial techniques, designed to challenge audiences have sometimes caused him to be criticized by both gay and anti-gay supporters. Praunheim originally studied painting in Berlin and from there was an assistant for such gay filmmakers as Werner Schroeter and Gregory J. Markopoulous. As a director, he made many underground short films on Super-8 or 16mm stock before going to work in television where he became known for such genre parodies as "Die Bettwurst" (The Bedroll), 1970.

Von Praunheim made his first gay-themed film, "Sisters of the Revolution" in 1969. The film was a three-part look at homosexual participation in the early women's liberation movement taking place in New York. One of his most influential films was 1970's made-for-TV outing "Homosexuelle ist Pervers, Sondern die Situation, in der Er Lebt" (It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverted, But the Situation in which He Lives). Not all of von Praunheim's films focus on homosexuality; some deal with those living on the fringes of society."

English: In the year 2000, my mother who was then 94 revealed to me that I was not her son. She had found me in an orphanage in Riga during the German occupation. She did not say more, and died in 2003. At first, I did not want to search for my biological mother, because a had a loving one. Later my curiosity awoke, but without my real family name my search appeared hopeless. Through a Latvian journalist I found Agnese, who discovered astonishing facts in the Latvian government archives. Also astonishing was that I could find my real birth record in Berlin. There, it said, that I was born in 1942 in the central prison in Riga. I documented the search in the file My Mothers.

ATR: We kept the 1:00 time of birth, though it is now questionable, as it was from the mother who gave false information to Taeger, and her son, until shortly before her death.